Post by Malcolm on Jun 24, 2013 17:41:49 GMT -5
Massey - 'Ancient Egypt' - "In the version given by Matthew there is but one divine visitant at the tomb, in addition to the two women here called the two Mary's. As the Sabbath day began to dawn "came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And behold there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. His appearance was as lightning, and his raiment was as white as snow" (Matt. XXVIII. 2, 3). The angel that rolls the stone away from the tomb in the Gospel for the buried Christ to rise corresponds to the god Shu in the Ritual, who is described as uplifting the heaven when the god Atum or Horus comes forth from the sarcophagus and passes through the gate of the rock to approach the land of spirits. It is said the gate of Tser is where Shu stands when he lifts up the heaven (Rit., 17, 56-7). The Tser was the rock of the horizon in which the dead body of Osiris was laid for its repose when it was buried in Annu. Shu is not only the uplifter of heaven or raiser of the gravestone, he is also the opener of the sepulchre as the bringer of breath to the newly awakened soul.
The Egyptian knew well enough that his body would remain where it was left when buried. For that it had been mummified. His difficulty was concerning his soul, and how to get this freed from its surroundings in the speediest fashion and the most enduring form. The Ritual speaks of the "shade", the "soul" and "spirit" as being in the tomb with the mummy-Osiris who rises from stage to stage according to the evolution of his spirit from the bonds of matter. Chief of these are the body-soul and spirit-Ka. The deceased, when in the tomb, is thus addressed, "Let the way be opened to thy Ka and to thy Soul, O glorified one; thou shalt not be imprisoned by those who have the custody of souls and spirits and who shut up the shades of the dead" (Rit., ch. 92). Thus the body-soul and Ka made their appearance in the tomb previously to being blended in the manifesting soul, called the double of the dead which constituted the risen Horus, and which was the only one of the seven souls that bore the human lineaments (Rit., ch. 178. The god who rises again is described in the Egyptian litany of Ra (58) as "he who raises his soul and conceals his body". His name is that of Herba, he who raises the soul. The body being hidden as Osiris, the soul was raised as Horus. Hence, as it is said, the mummy of Osiris was not found in the sepulchre. In one sense the body vanished by transubstantiation into spirit. The night of the evening meal on which the body was eaten sacramentally is called "the night of hiding him who is supreme of attributes" (Rit., ch. 18). The body was eaten typically as a mode of converting matter into spirit; this was the motive of the eucharist from the beginning when the mother was the victim eaten. In one of the texts cited by Birch concerning the burial of the god Osiris at Abydos, it is said the sepulchral chamber was searched but the body was not found. The "Shade, it was found" (Proceedings Bib. Archy., Dec. 2, 1884, p. 45). The shade was a primitive type of the soul; it is the shadow of an earthly body projected as it were into Amenta, and was portrayed in some of the vignettes lying black upon the ground of that earth, like the shadow of the human body on this earth. In Marcion's account of the resurrection there is no body to be found in the tomb; only the phantom, or the shade, was visible there. So in the Johannine version (ch. XX. 17) the buried body of Jesus is missing; the Shade is present in the tomb; but this is of a texture that must not be touched. Like Amsu it neither represents the dead corpus nor the spirit perfected.
It is quite possible that we get a glimpse of the "Ka" as that personage in the sepulchre described by Mark, who relates that when the women entered the tomb they "saw a young man sitting on the right side, arrayed in a white robe and they were amazed" (ch. XVI. 5). According to the gnosis, the Ka had here taken the place of the missing mummy which had risen, or as the Egyptians said, Osiris had made his transformation into Amsu-Horus. According to Luke, when the women came to the tomb with their spices and ointments they "found not the body of the Lord Jesus". But, "behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel", who said to them "why seek ye the Living (One) among the dead?" (Luke XXIV. 5). These, in the Johannine Gospel, are "two angels in white, sitting one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain" (John XX. 12). Now, if the "young man" represented the Ka-image in the human form we may suppose the "two men" to have been the soul and spirit called the Ka and the soul of the glorified, that were portrayed in the Egyptian sepulchre and which are to be read of in the Ritual. One of the numerous Egypto-gnostic scriptures which at one time were extant has lately been discovered in the fragment of a gospel assigned to Peter. This from the orthodox point of view is considered to be "docetic" - which is another name for non-historical. From this we learn that in the resurrection "the heavens opened and two men descended thence with great radiance" "and both the young men entered" the tomb. Two men entered and three figures issued forth. "They behold three men coming out of the tomb, and two of them were supporting a third, and a cross was following them; and the heads of the two men reached to the heaven, but the head of him who was being led along by them was higher than the heavens". And they heard a voice from heaven which said, "Hast thou preached to them that are asleep?" And a response of "Yea" was heard from the cross. This has no parallel in the canonical Gospels, but, as Egyptian, it is the scene of Atum (Ptah or Osiris) rising again in or with the two sons Hu and Sau. Also, in the pre-Osirian mythos, Hu and Sau, the two sons of Atum-Ra, support their father when he issues from the tomb and makes his exit from Amenta. These are two young men who are in the retinue of Ra, and who accompany their father in his resurrection daily (Rit., ch. 17)."
The Egyptian knew well enough that his body would remain where it was left when buried. For that it had been mummified. His difficulty was concerning his soul, and how to get this freed from its surroundings in the speediest fashion and the most enduring form. The Ritual speaks of the "shade", the "soul" and "spirit" as being in the tomb with the mummy-Osiris who rises from stage to stage according to the evolution of his spirit from the bonds of matter. Chief of these are the body-soul and spirit-Ka. The deceased, when in the tomb, is thus addressed, "Let the way be opened to thy Ka and to thy Soul, O glorified one; thou shalt not be imprisoned by those who have the custody of souls and spirits and who shut up the shades of the dead" (Rit., ch. 92). Thus the body-soul and Ka made their appearance in the tomb previously to being blended in the manifesting soul, called the double of the dead which constituted the risen Horus, and which was the only one of the seven souls that bore the human lineaments (Rit., ch. 178. The god who rises again is described in the Egyptian litany of Ra (58) as "he who raises his soul and conceals his body". His name is that of Herba, he who raises the soul. The body being hidden as Osiris, the soul was raised as Horus. Hence, as it is said, the mummy of Osiris was not found in the sepulchre. In one sense the body vanished by transubstantiation into spirit. The night of the evening meal on which the body was eaten sacramentally is called "the night of hiding him who is supreme of attributes" (Rit., ch. 18). The body was eaten typically as a mode of converting matter into spirit; this was the motive of the eucharist from the beginning when the mother was the victim eaten. In one of the texts cited by Birch concerning the burial of the god Osiris at Abydos, it is said the sepulchral chamber was searched but the body was not found. The "Shade, it was found" (Proceedings Bib. Archy., Dec. 2, 1884, p. 45). The shade was a primitive type of the soul; it is the shadow of an earthly body projected as it were into Amenta, and was portrayed in some of the vignettes lying black upon the ground of that earth, like the shadow of the human body on this earth. In Marcion's account of the resurrection there is no body to be found in the tomb; only the phantom, or the shade, was visible there. So in the Johannine version (ch. XX. 17) the buried body of Jesus is missing; the Shade is present in the tomb; but this is of a texture that must not be touched. Like Amsu it neither represents the dead corpus nor the spirit perfected.
It is quite possible that we get a glimpse of the "Ka" as that personage in the sepulchre described by Mark, who relates that when the women entered the tomb they "saw a young man sitting on the right side, arrayed in a white robe and they were amazed" (ch. XVI. 5). According to the gnosis, the Ka had here taken the place of the missing mummy which had risen, or as the Egyptians said, Osiris had made his transformation into Amsu-Horus. According to Luke, when the women came to the tomb with their spices and ointments they "found not the body of the Lord Jesus". But, "behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel", who said to them "why seek ye the Living (One) among the dead?" (Luke XXIV. 5). These, in the Johannine Gospel, are "two angels in white, sitting one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain" (John XX. 12). Now, if the "young man" represented the Ka-image in the human form we may suppose the "two men" to have been the soul and spirit called the Ka and the soul of the glorified, that were portrayed in the Egyptian sepulchre and which are to be read of in the Ritual. One of the numerous Egypto-gnostic scriptures which at one time were extant has lately been discovered in the fragment of a gospel assigned to Peter. This from the orthodox point of view is considered to be "docetic" - which is another name for non-historical. From this we learn that in the resurrection "the heavens opened and two men descended thence with great radiance" "and both the young men entered" the tomb. Two men entered and three figures issued forth. "They behold three men coming out of the tomb, and two of them were supporting a third, and a cross was following them; and the heads of the two men reached to the heaven, but the head of him who was being led along by them was higher than the heavens". And they heard a voice from heaven which said, "Hast thou preached to them that are asleep?" And a response of "Yea" was heard from the cross. This has no parallel in the canonical Gospels, but, as Egyptian, it is the scene of Atum (Ptah or Osiris) rising again in or with the two sons Hu and Sau. Also, in the pre-Osirian mythos, Hu and Sau, the two sons of Atum-Ra, support their father when he issues from the tomb and makes his exit from Amenta. These are two young men who are in the retinue of Ra, and who accompany their father in his resurrection daily (Rit., ch. 17)."